Related papers: Controlling wall particle interactions with activi…
Active work measures how far the local self-forcing of active particles translates into real motion. Using Population Monte Carlo methods, we investigate large deviations in the active work for repulsive active Brownian disks. Minimizing…
Jamming is ubiquitous in disordered systems, but the critical behavior of jammed solids subjected to active forces or thermal fluctuations remains elusive. In particular, while passive athermal jamming remains mean-field-like in two and…
Active fluid droplets are a class of soft materials exhibiting autonomous motion sustained by an energy supply. Such systems have been shown to capture motility regimes typical of biological cells and are ideal candidates as building-block…
We perform dynamical simulations of a two-dimensional active nematic fluid in coexistence with an isotropic fluid. Drops of active nematic become elongated, and an effective anchoring develops at the nematic-isotropic interface. The…
We examine the collective states of run-and-tumble active matter disks driven over a periodic obstacle array. When the drive is applied along a symmetry direction of the array, we find a clog-free uniform liquid state for low activity,…
Hard-sphere fluids confined between parallel plates a distance $D$ apart are studied for a wide range of packing fractions, including also the onset of crystallization, applying Monte Carlo simulation techniques and density functional…
Advent of nematic liquid crystals flows have attracted renewed attention in view of microfluidic transport phenomena. Among various transport processes, electroosmosis stands as one of the efficient flow actuation method through narrow…
How can a collection of motile cells, each generating contractile nematic stresses in isolation, become an extensile nematic at the tissue-level? Understanding this seemingly contradictory experimental observation, which occurs irrespective…
With the aim of investigating the stability conditions of biaxial nematic liquid crystals, we study the effect of adding a non-adsorbing ideal depletant on the phase behavior of colloidal hard boardlike particles. We take into account the…
We derive the effective energy density of thin membranes of liquid crystal elastomers as the Gamma-limit of a widely used bulk model. These membranes can display fine-scale features both due to wrinkling that one expects in thin elastic…
We experimentally investigate the impact of a flat, horizontal disk onto a boiling liquid, i.e., a liquid in thermal equilibrium with its vapor phase. We observe exceptionally high impact pressures deviating strongly from the inertial…
The dynamics of a membrane coupled to an active fluid on top of a substrate is considered theoretically. It is assumed that the director field of the active fluid has rotational symmetry in the membrane plane. This situation is likely to be…
Inspired by recent experimental observations of a harmonically excited elastic foil hovering near a wall while supporting substantial weight, we develop a theoretical framework that describes the underlying physical effects. Using…
A system of inelastic hard disks in a thin pipe capped by hot walls is studied with the aim of investigating velocity correlations between particles. Two effects lead to such correlations: inelastic collisions help to build localized…
I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…
We examine directional locking effects in an assembly of disks driven through a square array of obstacles as the angle of drive rotates from zero to ninety degrees. For increasing disk densities, the system exhibits a series of different…
Surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. Here we report on dispersed nanoparticles close to a fluid membrane. Exact results regarding the static organization are derived for a dilute solution of non-adhesive…
We numerically model a two-dimensional active nematic confined by a periodic array of fixed obstacles. Even in the passive nematic, the appearance of topological defects is unavoidable due to planar anchoring by the obstacle surfaces. We…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
Dense assemblies of self-propelled particles undergo a nonequilibrium form of glassy dynamics. Physical intuition suggests that increasing departure from equilibrium due to active forces fluidifies a glassy system. We falsify this belief by…